


Shades of Mediocrity

by Englandwouldfall



Series: Home [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Breakups, F/M, M/M, Romance, on off relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-09-13 04:58:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16886055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englandwouldfall/pseuds/Englandwouldfall
Summary: Dean needs to rearrange his life all over again, regroup, restart and work out what the hell to do next.Castiel needs to learn where to channel his heart break, among other things.





	1. Chapter 1

The night he met Lisa in where-the-fuck-ever, Indiana, he was strung out from driving, pissed off at Sam and just about ready to turn his steering wheel back to Kansas, road trip be damned. Sam insisting he _go_ on this dumbass trip still stung with rejection and indignation. He was fucking miserable and far enough away from anyone who knew him to admit that he was lonely, and a little freaking pathetic, and the plan was to drink until he felt _okay_ about the total shitshow of his life, and pass out until just before the motel checkout deadline.

Lisa approached him as he brooded his way through his second scotch, sliding into the bar stool next to him as six of her friends just barely stifled their goddamn giggles into their hands a couple of feet away. 

“So,” Lisa said, “New in town?”

“Passing through,” Dean said with a tight smile. He hardly looked up from his drink until Lisa --- Lisa freaking Braeden --- leaned across the bar and ordered ‘two of whatever he's having’ like it wasn't hot as hell to have some twenty three year old, badass yoga teacher hit on him by buying hard whiskey and knocking it back like a goddamn pro, and…

And then they did small talk. That Dean was a mechanic on a road trip that his brother was supposed to be on with him. That Lisa stuck out a whole year at college before she ditched it to teach yoga. That Dean was from just about nowhere, but lived in Lawrence, Kansas, and that Lisa's apartment was just down the street, walking distance actually, and--

And he figured that there wasn't a single goddamn reason why not.

She kissed him against the front door of the apartment like she knew exactly what and how and where she freaking wanted it, and they wound up tangled together and scrabbling at clothes in her open plan kitchen because the bedroom was too damn far away. They fucked against her breakfast bar with her legs wrapped around his waist and then again in her bedroom - with a goddamn condom, both times - and it was the awesome, easy kind of sex that had him seriously considering leaving his number before he skipped out.

The second night was an almost accident. He pitched up back at the motel to actually get some sleep, then figured he'd go back to the bar for a drink for the road before he carried on driving to nowhere, and then Lisa was there in some tight jeans and crop top combo like she’d been expecting him to show up and, _well_.

They screwed in his car - with a condom - and she was even hotter and bendier than she'd been yesterday, so he went back to place for beer and round two; in Lisa's comfortable as hell bed, with a damn condom, and it was the best sex he'd ever had in his whole fucking life, toe curlingly, mind blowingly hot. Uncomplicated, bendy and freaking awesome.

Lisa bought them coffee in bed with Dean's shirt on, buttoned up right to the top with not a damn thing underneath, with that _ass_ , as she said _you might as well stay. Tomorrow's my day off_ in a casual, easy voice. The coffee was strong and delicious, and Lisa drank it in bed next to him with her long, gorgeous legs stretched out, casual as anything. He went down on her just be-freaking-cause, and then they ordered take out and he stayed. 

The next day, they went for dinner that was more foreplay than a date and she plugged her number into his phone while he we went on a beer run and bought _more fucking condoms_ and Dean stayed another night, because there wasn't a damn person in the world missing him, and because Lisa was awesome and fun and sexy --

\--- And then Cas called.

Lisa Braeden is _pregnant._

*

Dean walks into the coffee shop with Cas talking in his ear about the airport, and then there’s Lisa and everything in his head screeches to a sudden, absolute stop. He doesn’t say much. He’s not sure what hell _does_ come out of his mouth, but ---

The only thing Lisa wants from him is a DNA test. 

She says that she’s ninety five percent sure that Dean’s the father and she’s booked an appointment the following morning for him to give a sample, the results of which will be run after the baby is born. 

Dean just nods like a fucking asshole, because everything he can think of saying clogs up and curdles in his throat, and the jarring shock has set into his lungs like cement. 

She presses a sonogram into his hand before she leaves and, like the last couple of times Dean’s world has inverted, shifted, and spun dizzily out of his control, he drives to Bobby’s.

Lisa is pregnant.

“Dean,” Bobby says when he answers the door, eyes crinkling in worry as Dean walks in without saying a goddamn thing. He's sat with his head in his hands in the kitchen before he manages to fucking say something, and then it's just a croaked “Bobby.”

The sonogram photo is still in his hand. It's easier to uncurl the fist clutching it than to explain, because he had no idea what the fuck he’d _say_ anyway. It’s not the first time his life has spiralled out of control. It’s not even the second, because it feels a lot like every time Dean manages to work out where he’s standing the ceiling drops away, but... it felt shocking, but it wasn’t a _shock_. When he stripped all the rest of it away, he knew those things would happen: he knew John Winchester would disappear into the ether one day, he just thought they’d have more time first; he knew when they lost that apartment that his attempts to keep the whole damn world ignorant of the situation wouldn’t work; the second Ellen walked into that classroom, he knew that he’d wind up separated from Sam. John dying had shockwaves that stole the air out of his lungs, but he knew that he’d never see him again. Their dad dying was a shock because he didn’t think they’d ever find out, not because John turning up wrapped around the front seat of his car felt unlikely. And then there’s this. 

Pregnant. She's _pregnant_. 

“Well, shit,” Bobby says and sits down heavily opposite him. He’s used to Bobby having answers, or at least some comfort. Less than a week ago Bobby gave him a pep talk about Cas in the middle of the damn night, but this —

Bobby doesn’t know what to say. 

“Bobby.”

“ And this girl thinks-?”

“She said she's ninety five percent sure.”

“Well. There's some odds.”

“Its - he's a he. She just found out, like, last week.” Dean says, before his throat closes up around the word. A boy. A fucking baby.

Lisa is going to have a fucking baby.

A baby. _His_ , probably.

“She… DNA sample. That's all she wants. For, uh, after he's born,” Dean says, and the words are too… too real. Too big. 

“Which is?”

“Fuck, I didn't, I didn't ask that. I… uh. Four, five months. May. June, maybe. I - _fuck_.”

“Your damned road trip.”

“She lives in freaking Indiana, Bobby.”

“This girl got a name?”

“Lisa. Lisa Braden. She, uh. Yoga teacher. The one who -- she text me on New Year's eve,” Dean says, thumb distractedly running over the corner of the sonogram. He doesn't know if Lisa went alone. Doesn't know who she told or when she told them. Doesn't know what she did when she found out: how she felt, what she thought, whether she… Whether she thought about whether she could do it. Thought about the other option. He doesn't know. He didn't ask. He stood there and he said _coffee is a helluva euphemism_ like a jackass, and then Lisa talked and he nodded and he didn't ask.

“And she wants a DNA sample.”

“Yep,” Dean says, throat exceptionally dry.

“So, there's someone else in the frame.”

“Yeah,” Dean exhales, chest tightening and tightening, wringing some deep set fear into his bloodstream, “She said the Doc said that , with the dates , he -- and, uh, I was there a couple of days and this other guy was just for the night so…”

“So smart money's on you.”

“Bobby, she doesn’t _want_ anything,” Dean says, blinking at him. She'd been so resolute on that. She said she didn't wasn't here to screw up Dean's life. That she's known Dean didn't expect this and didn't want it. That she knew he was in a relationship and lived miles away and was too young for any of this. She just wanted to know what name to put on her baby's birthday certificate. She expects Dean to turn up at the appointment tomorrow and fuck off forever. He could walk away from this. He could walk away and move to somewhere between Yale and wherever Sam chooses to study, and have a snowball in hell's chance of being happy, and Lisa wouldn't even blame him for it. But, he can't. 

He can't. Not to a kid. Not to this _kid_.

“Bobby,” Dean says, weakly, “She doesn't want anything to do with me.” 

He knows that look in Bobby’s eyes. Has seen it a thousand times, but not once from _Bobby_ , and it churns up something uncomfortable and painful in his throat, because _that_ expression takes him right back to being fourteen and chasing the crumbs of his approval from his father and getting nothing but _disappointment_. 

That night he shrugs Sam's questions off about coffee with Lisa and barricades himself in his room with a bottle of Jack and the picture of the little boy growing inside Lisa's stomach. He straightens out the edges of the picture and thinks and thinks and thinks.

*

He meets Lisa at the clinic with two coffees, before he registers that he's pretty sure there's something about babies and caffeine that he can't remember because there's no goddamn reason why he should, and then another wave of _I can't do this_ hits him out of thin air. He’s never been so underqualified for anything in his whole goddamn life and that’s the main thing that’s been pulsating in his head, over and over, since he decided there was only one option in this. He didn’t sleep. 

“I -,” Dean begins, gesturing with the coffee before the words fall flat. She ordered some tea thing yesterday. He doesn’t know what kind. Lisa bought the drinks while he sat there and felt his whole fucking world shatter. “I can, uh -”

“Its fine,” Lisa says, looking at him with her forehead creased, expression unfathomable. “I can have one. We should check in at reception.”

Dean just nods as Lisa gives the woman her details and takes a sip of her coffee. She barely looks up from her computer. Just drawls off a _they’ll be with you shortly_ and gestures to the waiting area. 

It’s… down right fucking bizarre. When he last saw her, she was this carelessly sexy free spirit, with her coffee machine and are down right incredible shower pressure, the epitome of actually _living_. Now, she’s… an adult. There’s something different about her face. There’s something different about the way that she holds herself and Dean has no freaking idea what to say or what to say or what common ground they even have, here.

“I’m not being some freaking deadbeat,” Dean says, after the silence has dragged on, because it’s been burning in his stomach since reality began to permeate past the shock, and he -- he can’t. He _won’t_. If, if he’s having a _kid_ , then ---

The day he realised John Winchester wasn’t coming back, not _ever,_ he delivered some bullshit line to Sam as if he wasn’t completely losing his shit and he fumbled his way to the impala. They hadn’t been evicted, yet, and Dean was working as many shifts they’d give him and it wasn’t nearly e-fucking-nough, and his grades were starting to plummet, and he was treading water and he knew it was all going to go to shit. He _knew_ they were gonna be chucked out, he knew they wouldn’t have anywhere to go, and he knew that he’d lose Sam and his world was going to fall apart, and he crawled into the impala. He went for the backseat because he wanted to be a _fucking kid_ again and he hugged his knees to his chest like he did when they were four years old and driving away from his childhood home three weeks after Mary Winchester died, and he said _fuck you, Dad_ out loud for the first time in his life. Over and over again, louder and louder, until his voice went, and the anger gave way to sheer unadulterated fear. 

He can’t do that. He can’t let that happen. He _can’t._

Lisa looks at the coffee for a long time and then looks up at him.

“Okay,” Lisa says, gaze shifting over to him as she scans his face. “Fine, if you want to pay maintenance then -” 

“Yeah, there's money,” Dean swallows, grip on his coffee so tight the cup begins to bend in his hands, “I can do that, whatever you need -”

“- Dean,” Lisa says, “My parents are helping me out. I don't need you to do this.”

“I need to see him. Be there.”

“Look,” Lisa says, slow, “You're a good guy, Dean. I'm not trying to stop you seeing your kid, but... let's be practical about this. It's an eight hour drive.”

“Then I'll move,” Dean says, and suddenly he means it. He's more convicted than he's ever been about anything, because, because --- because he had to tell Sam why their dad wasn't going to be around for Christmas, or his birthday, and he stole peanut butter to feed his kid brother, and because he hates his fucking father and he loves him so goddamn much and reconciling those two things was one of the most difficult things in his life. He's not doing that to someone else. He can't. It would tear him a-fucking-part. He couldn't live with it. “I'll move to Indiana. He's not growing up without a dad. He's not - I'm not doing that. I, I have to be there.” 

“Dean,” Lisa says, “I don't expect that from you.”

“Right. You expect me to just give you a goddamn DNA samples and then fuck off. You really think that I would---?”

“I don't _know_ you, Dean. We met for three days.”

“And you … Why didn't you call me when you worked this out?”

“Because I had some fucking adjusting to do myself, Dean. I never intended to have a baby, alone, before I had anything in my life sorted out -”

“ - Let’s make this damn clear. You were _alone_ because you didn't tell me. There's... I would have come through for you.”

“Fine,” Lisa says, her voice tinted with a little more heat than he’s ever heard from her before. A little more conviction. “You want in, then you're in, but I'm not having you taking off, or be around half the time. You pay what you say you're going to pay and you turn up when you say you're going to turn up. You don't get to half ass this.”

“ _Fine_.”

“And you don't get to tell me I'm not handling this properly. It's my body. My decision. My life, so you can cut your self righteous crap right now -”

“ - that’s not what I meant,” Dean says, “That’s not… You've had months to process this, Lisa. I'm behind here. I - I'm not trying to be an asshole, I swear to god, I just didn't... You're _pregnant_.”

“Yeah, Dean, I noticed,” Lisa says, exhaling. She takes another sip of her coffee and watches him. Swallows. Thinks. “Look, I get it. It... took me a while to get my head round everything. And -- I, I didn't expect you to want anything to do with this. I wasn't expecting you to show up, let alone bring coffee -”

“You have a kid, you have to be there. You have to… Lisa, you gotta understand, I can't just-”

“ - You need to take some time and think about what you're committing to,” Lisa says, voice firm. “You're in shock and you haven't thought the consequences through, Dean. This changes everything.”

“You think I don’t know that?” 

“No,” Lisa says, “You don’t. Dean, my whole _life_ has changed. I had to give up my apartment and move back into my parents house. Work is being great about all of this, but I can’t teach yoga anymore, not _well_ , anyway, and not for much longer… and my friends don’t know what to _say to me_. They don’t have kids. They’re not interested in having kids. They’re interested in their careers, nights out, talking about their _sex lives_ which, by the way, _dead in the fucking water_. I’ve been sick for weeks and weeks, I’ve got stretch marks, I can’t drink, can’t eat raw steaks, or blue cheese and I’ve read six different books about babies that all told me different crap about breastfeeding and nappies and co-sleeping and I have no idea what’s right or wrong or what of this stuff even means. This is… this is _huge_. You can’t commit to this on a whim. You need to think.”

“There isn’t,” Dean begins, the words jarring in his throat, “There isn’t another option.” 

“Dean,” Lisa begins, but then _Lisa Braeden_ is called across the tannoy system and Dean’s pulled into a room to give a swab of DNA, sign some paperwork and be thoroughly patronised by the medical whatever until he’s shoved back out into the waiting area. 

“Dean,” Lisa breathes, gesturing for him to come close as he walks dumbly out of the appointment. Her hand is curved over her stomach in that way that pregnant women do on TV; almost reverent, with a small, secret smile. When Dean gets close enough, she reaches out and places his hand on her bump and it’s… weird. _Strange_.

He kicks. There's a person in there. A baby. A little freaking human growing and kicking, with toe nails on tiny little hands, with Lisa's bendy yoga genes and maybe, maybe, Dean's love of mullet rock and classic cars.

“I'm not going to change my mind,” Dean says, shoulders furrowed.

Lisa looks at him for a long moment and nods.

He's going to have a baby.

*

When he gets back home, Sam is already furious. He’s spitting nails and pacing back and forth across the apartment and has a look on his face that he knows, he fucking knows, and that's probably a bad sign for how this conversation is gonna go.

“She just returned your shirt, huh?”

“Bobby,” Dean says, voice flat.

“Were you ever gonna tell me?” Sam asks. “You're going to have a fucking baby, Dean -”

“Yep,” Dean says, pushing past into his room and stripping the bed. He meant to have this conversation well. He'd rehearsed it in his head. He knew exactly what he was going to say, but now he's starting on the back foot. On the defensive. He's always been a fucking disaster when he’s on the defensive.

“When?”

“Right fucking now,” Dean says, pulling the damn sonogram out of his pocket and slamming it down on the bed side table. “Lisa's pregnant, Sam, and we're moving to Indiana.”

Sam stares at him.

Dean slams past him and heads for the washing machine to shove his sheets in the machine, heart hammering. She's going to stay here while they work out the details. She's going to take Dean's room and he'll take the sofa and he hasn't really factored Sam into any of this, because he can't work out a way to make it fit.

Sam follows him into the kitchen.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam asks, voice white hot and sharp. “What do you mean, moving to Indiana?”

“Which words are giving you trouble, Sammy?”

“I,” Sam begins, squaring his jaw, his traditional _stubborn douchebag_ face slipping across his feature. That look usually means that Dean’s already lost, but not this time. It’s not goddamn optional. “I'm not moving.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “You are.”

“No, I'm not,” Sam says, voice hot.

“This isn't a fucking negotiation, Sammy --”

“-- No. It isn't,” Sam agrees, “When the hell do you think this is going to happen?”

“I don't know, Sam, as soon as goddamn possible ---”

“--- what the _fuck_ , Dean? You --- you said all that stuff demanding to follow me to college and now you're --- ?”

“-- Yeah, and now there's a fucking pregnant yoga teacher in Indiana living with her goddamn parents. Shit happens. We're moving to Indiana and then can go to college wherever the fuck you want to go to college without me, exactly how you wanted it to be.”

Sam stares at him. Stares and stares.

“I can't. I can't move to Indiana. Dean, it's my last year of high school. I - I'm in the middle of all my classes. I'd never catch up.”

“You would. You always catch up.”

“These are the grades I need to get me to college. To _Yale_ , or Harvard. I- I've got letters of recommendation and the internship and _friends_. I won't move. You can't make me.” 

Dean's gut twists. He can't make him. He _can’t._ Sam has seen to that. He's emancipated. There's not a damn thing that Dean can do about that.

“Sam I don't have a choice. I don't -”

“ - You have no right of guardianship. I don't have to move just because you are.”

“Fine,” Dean snaps, even though it isn’t. It isn’t fine. He’s never, not for one _second_ in his whole life, considered them split up to be _fine_. Everything about his identity is built on needing to look after Sam, but, but -- Dean can’t make him do a fucking thing. He never _could_ , it’s just that Sam let him have his delusions because Dean never pushed hard enough for it to be worth pushing back. “Then you're going back to Sonny's.”

“I can't. I'm emancipated. I'm not _allowed_. Even if I wanted to -”

Sam’s _right_. Sam’s fucking right, because he’s not allowed. It’s exactly the same as Dean being eighteen and suddenly out on his own. He’s done that _to_ Sam. He’s ripped the rug out from under his feet and has just expected him to _deal_ with it, and… fuck, Dean _did_ that. 

Dread starts creeping up his windpipe. 

“I - I can talk to Bobby. He, maybe you can stay with him.”

“No. I'm not moving.” Sam says, voice cold and flat and orney as hell. 

“I can't afford to pay two lots of rent, Sam. I can't do it. I don't have the money. I need you to work with me here.”

“I'll get my job back,” Sam says, snaps. Sam's pissed off on a atomic level, but the kind of anger that stems from hurt and fear that Dean knows like the back of his hand. Everything has _changed_ , and that affects Sam. That… changes their whole relationship. His brother is alone in the world, exactly as Dean was. Exactly as Dean always swore he would never, not a million fucking years, let happen, but --- he doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to _do_. “ I'll do it myself. I'll. I'll do it myself. “

“Sam, damnit. Don't make this any harder, I need you with me on this --”

“And I _need you_ to put me through high school, here, like you promised you would -- ”

“I'm having a kid, Sammy. I don't - I don't have a choice. I can't-”

“You _did this_.”

“A faulty goddamn condom did this,” Dean snaps back, “What do you want me to do, Sam?”

“All that _crap_ you said about how you needed me -”

“ - this isn’t a goddamn negotiation, Sam, that’s how it is. We're moving.”

“You're moving,” Sam says, “I'm not having a fucking thing to do with this, Dean, you can't _ask_ me to do this --”

“ - I've never asked you for a fucking thing in my life,” Dean says, emotion creeping in, “Goddamnit, Sam, I have done _everything_ in my whole life for you. Every fucking cent of my money, every damn moment of my life, all that shit with Ellen --”

“ - No,” Sam says, “You can't guilt trip me into ruining my life. I'm not doing it. Don't you dare pull that family first shit on me, Dean, because I won't listen.”

“ _You're a goddamn kid._ ”

“No I'm not,” Sam says, yelling now. “I'm not a kid, Dean, because I got the fucking courts to declare that I wasn't because you wanted me to live with you to make you feel better about the fact that Ellen was so goddamn sure that _you_ were too irresponsible to be anyone's guardian -”

“ - Shut your goddamn mouth, Sam.”

“- No,” Sam says, “I can't believe you'd do this. I can't believe you ---” 

“ --- You have no fucking idea what it's like to be alone in the goddamn world, Sam, you haven't got a _clue_ -”

“ - Well, guess fucking what? I'm about to find out.”

Sam needs him and he _can’t be here_. 

“Sam,”

“What--- ? You're stripping the bed. Lisa is coming here. You invited her to stay before you'd even told me she was pregnant, you fucking , you - ”

“She was staying in studentsville on a friends sofa, Sam, I had to -”

“ - This is my goddamn home, Dean. My home. You're ---- what does Cas say about this?”

“I will deal with Cas,” Dean says, his throat catching on something sharp and painful, because he hasn’t even _thought_ about Cas. It feels so fucking impossible, because he’s just barely come to terms with how in love he is with his Cas, Castiel, with his dumbass bedhead and his daddy issues and his smart ass remarks, but… Lisa is _pregnant_. This woman he barely goddamn knows, carrying his _kid_ , and he’s leaving Sam. He’s leaving his kid brother to muddle through his final year of high school even though it violates every single instinct he’s ever had about _anything_ because he can’t ---- he can’t be John Winchester. He can’t. He can’t become his father. Even if it costs him. Even if it costs him Sam. Even if it costs him _Castiel_. 

“You haven't told him.” Sam says, “You fucking jerk, Dean. What--- what do you mean _deal with Cas_?

“Well, I guess it's done,” Dean says, jaw squared.

He knows that Sam is going to punch him in the face before he raises his arm, but he doesn't move. He let's Sam’s knuckles collide with his cheek, because that's exactly what Dean needed to do when John Winchester dropped them in the shit. He kind of wants Sam to hit him again, because every single world Sam is throwing at him is dead on. Dean made promises. He made commitments. He told Sam that he'd do anything in the damn world for Sam's good, and they just found his limit.

He _wants_ the distraction of Sam’s fist slamming into his jaw; pain and blood and, fuck, it’s not like Dean deserves it. 

Sam doesn't hit him again. He turns on the spot and leaves.

Lisa turns up twenty minutes later. He gives her the tour of the apartment and offers her a brief, hurried explanation of his brother punching him in the face that skims over all the details he doesn't want to dredge up ever. They order take take out and eat it on the sofa. 

*

Dean wakes up in the morning with his back screwed up on the sofa after a shitty night’s sleep, and it hits him with harder than Sam's fist to his face that his little kid brother didn't come home last night. He would have woken up if Sam got back. He would have had to walk past the sofa to get through Dean's room, and he didn't. Dean would have woken up. He grabs for his phone before he’s really conscious but --- nothing. _Nothing_. 

Sam’s never done that before. He _knows_ that Dean’s basically a helicopter parent shoved into a twenty two year old’s body and he knows that _not fucking coming home_ is the kind of thing that would make him lose his mind, but _Sam isn’t here_.

Dean checks his room just in case. There’s a Yale prospectus on Sam’s desk, his bed isn’t slept in, and Dean trips over his damn feet on the way back out of the room, heart in his throat, thumb already hovering over Sam’s name on his phone.

Straight to answer phone.

_Sam is missing_. 

No, not missing. He’s just _not here_. Sam’s fucking _pissed off_ and he punched Dean in the face and he’s almost definitely fine, he’s just… somewhere else.

It’s just… Dean doesn’t know where the fuck somewhere else is. 

He calls Bobby.

Ellen picks up Bobby's phone, which has Dean's stomach swooping with a sensation that feels a lot like shame. Ellen never thought he could look after Sam and it turns out she was right, and now he has no idea where the fuck his brother is, and he's already losing his shit. 

“Is he there?”

“Dean?” Ellen says.

“Ellen, is Sam there?”

“What?”

“Damnit, Ellen, he didn't come home last night --”

“--- And you think if he showed up here one of us wouldn't let you know, rather than you worrying yourself to death? What happened?”

“We… We had a fight,” Dean says, blinking, pacing his way into the kitchen. He’s too fucking anxious to put on a pot of coffee, but there’s still tendrils of exhaustion clutching at the corners of his mind. There’s… this is a lot. Lisa’s asleep in his bedroom and _he doesn’t know where Sam is_ and… and he hasn’t even spoken to Cas, yet. Everything’s falling apart. _All of it_. 

“How bad a _fight_?”

“He, he punched me in the damn face and he left, and he's not answering his goddamn phone Ellen, and I don't know where he is -”

“- you tried that girl of his?”

“No,” Dean exhales, lungs caving in. Sarah. He hadn't even thought about Sarah. He's probably with her, camped out on her sofa because her parents won't let him stay in her room. He'll be there, safe, and he'll _come home_ and everything will be fine. “Okay. I'll call her. Ellen, could you ?”

“ - Yep. I'll call him and later you can tell what the hell it is that you did now, boy.”

“Ask Bobby,” Dean bites out, in the second before he hangs up, “He sure as hell seems to like gossiping about my bullshit.”

Sarah doesn’t answer, either. 

Dean stands there in the kitchen with his world fucking exploding and tries not to feel a damn thing.

“Hey,” Lisa says, stood in the doorway of his kitchen, like that isn’t trippy as hell, because _Lisa_ was supposed to be some transient, brief thing. A good times kind of memory. She wasn’t supposed to wind up displaced, in freaking Lawrence, in the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

“Uh,” Dean begins, his instinct telling him to shut this whole conversation down, because… he doesn’t talk about shit like this with people he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t _know_ Lisa, but he's not sure if he has a choice.“Sam didn’t come home last night.”

“He done that before?”

“Never,” Dean exhales, shutting his eyes for a brief second. “Sorry,”

“He did a real number on your eye,” Lisa says, in that _other_ voice she uses. Not the one he remembers from those couple of days in Indiana, but her straight-up-real voice. Unapologetic and almost soft. “You should ice it,”

“Pretty damn sure it’s too late for that,” Dean mutters.

“If years of watching my best friend drinking too much and falling over things has taught me anything, it’s that it’s never too late,” Lisa says, crossing his kitchen and a bag of frozen veg and wrapping it in a tea towel. She presses it up against his right eye and looks at him. “You’re talking about your brother like he’s a kid.”

“He is,” Dean says, through the lump in his throat, “Seventeen.” 

“And it’s just you two?”

“Yep,” Dean says, not looking at her.

“Dean ---”

His phone rings. It’s still clutched in his hand.

“ - Bobby,” Dean exhales, the second he’s picked up, “Where is he?”

“Kevin’s,” Bobby says, voice curt, “And he aint happy with you, Sunshine.”

“Not all that fucking pleased with him either,” Dean snaps back, “He’s… Sam’s okay?”

“Yep,” 

“But he’s not talking to me,”

“Looks like,” Bobby says.

“Awesome,” Dean spits out, “Tell him to freaking call when he’s pulled his head out of his ass,”

“He says he’s staying at Kevin’s for a couple of days.”

“ _What_?” 

“Dean,” Bobby says, “Give him some space.”

“Fine,” Dean says, and hangs up. Lisa doesn't ask about it. She shoots him a look that might be considered sympathetic and holds the ice pack back up to his cheek until he reached out for it himself.

“Sit,” Lisa says, tilting her head, “I’ll make you some coffee.” 

*

It takes three days for Sam to come home. 

It's not like his life hasn't provided plenty of goddamn completion, but the they're probably the worst few days of his life.

*

The text from Gabriel says _you fucking asshole_ and nothing else, and it’s so out of the goddamn blue that it knocks him for six. The entirety of this week has been a goddamn disaster, and he’s been caught up in the midst of this world wind of _shit_ that a text from Gabriel should be the least of his problems. He’s got Lisa and Sam eyeing each other over the kitchen table for the second time ever, Sam pretty much isn’t talking to him, and he had a full on fucking row with Bobby over him telling Sam (Dean’s pretty sure that the whole thing was an accident, but everything’s so close to the surface that he’s not even sorry about the goddamn fight), and now he’s got this text message from Gabriel who he hasn’t heard for _years_ , except ---

Castiel. 

Cas. _Cas_. Cas, except Gabriel wouldn’t know a damn thing about Cas, because Cas hasn’t so much as breathed an acknowledgement of Dean’s existence in his family’s direction for the past five months. He already flat out told Dean he wouldn’t tell them until Dean told him he was thoroughly in, full blown relationship in, but - 

_“ --- I'm - I'll explain when I'm there, but I'm boarding a plane to Kansas City and I -”_

Cas was on his way to _Lawrence_ and…

It’s been a week. Cas told him he was boarding a plane to Lawrence and Dean hung up on him and didn’t call him for a _fucking week_. 

“Fuck,” Dean says, already picking up his phone and hitting _dial_ before his heart can catch up with himself. He knew it was weird that Cas hadn’t called. That there was something down right fucking off about the lack of texts and all the rest of it, but there was too much in his head for him to focus on it, and--- and denial, because, he can't make it work. He can't make any of this work all at the same time. He can't make his relationship with Sam work and make this work, and it's eclipsed fucking everything. He doesn't have a choice, but he's so goddamn in love with Cas and he doesn't want to have this conversation. It's going to break him. It's going to tear him to pieces and it's going to break Cas and every time he thinks about it -- about that future he thought might happen for all of a fucking week-- he wants to tell Lisa that he's out. That he can't be a father. That she can have her DNA sample and he never wants to see her again, because -

Castiel makes him want things for himself. Thinking about Cas makes his whole fucking soul ache with how unfair this is, how fucking unfair everything has always been, and then, then, there's this part of him that hates this baby for existing and then he's hit in the face with overwhelming nausea and guilt and shame, because this kid is innocent. He didn't ask for this. He didn't ask for it anymore than Dean asked for John Winchester to disappear and wind up dead. Anymore than Cas asked for his dad to manipulate and isolate him to try and be loved.

It's not about Dean anymore, which means it's not about Cas anymore.

But... He hadn't meant to ignore him. He'd totally fucking forgotten that Cas called and said he was at the airport. He’d barely heard it. He’d turned around and watched Lisa walk in, heart stoppingly and totally fucking pregnant, and everything else has dropped out of his head.

“ Cas,” Dean says, breathily, as he prays with every inch of his body tense that Cas will pick up the fucking phone. Damn whether Dean doesn't want to have this conversation, Cas is thinking who the hell knows what. Hasn't even _text_ him to ask why he wasn't called and , and that's a kick in the teeth, because it proves Dean's hypothesis that Cas doesn't trust him.

Cas didn't even try. Dean rushed him off the phone once - during the worst freaking timed call of all time, granted, when Cas was about to get on a goddamn plane but --- why didn’t he fucking call again? Send him a text? Ask him when Dean was gonna call him back? And the only damn reason Dean can think of is because Cas never trusted him. That he assumed Dean backed out the second it got real to avoid them talking face to face. That whatever faith he had in Dean when they were kids, it died a long time ago.

The call goes to voicemail too quickly. Cas rejected the call. He's pissed. He's pissed and he thinks he's proved himself right, and Dean's not even sure he can goddamn blame him.

“ You didn't talk to him,” Sam says, voice flat.

“Sam, now's not really the time,” Dean snaps, thumbing out a text before deleting the whole damn thing. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to say any of this, without breaking down and fucking sobbing. His emotions are running pretty damn close to the surface right now and he's pretty sure that if he spoke to Cas the dam would break. He wants to cry and yell and scream, and he can't. He _can’t_ because this isn't Cas’ burden. Cas can't be that for him anymore. Cas. Dean never forgave himself for breaking his heart the first time. He can't begin to entertain doing it by text.

He'll call again, when he's thought about what to say.

“Cas,” Lisa says, frowning. “I, I didn't know Cas was a he.”

“Is that a problem?” Sam asks, his voice far too confrontational. Dean unfurls his grip on his telephone and tries to ignore the pressure in his chest from the sound of Cas’ voicemail.

“No,” Lisa says, a little too defensive back, “I knew you were in a relationship, I just didn't know that you had a...a boyfriend.”

“Cas isn't my boyfriend,” Dean says, voice flat, disconnected. “He lives in New haven and I've seen him twice since we hooked up. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway.”

“He's the love of your life that you were going to move across the country for,” Sam says, voice sharp, “That you asked me to look at colleges near -”

“ - Sam,” Dean says, voice pained.

“Forget it,” Sam says, slamming his way into his room. Less than a minute later, he's heading to the door with a bag over his shoulder and he spits out that he's not coming home tonight without looking at him.

“Your brother doesn't like me much,” Lisa says, gaze fixed on the door. 

“Sam’s world just got capsized,” Dean says, a little numb.

“So did yours,” Lisa says, eyes very careful as she watches him stare at his phone. Dean deletes his second attempting a red message.

“Sam's seventeen,” Dean says, “Seventeen year-old kids get allowances.”

He didn't get any allowances, but that's a different story. 

“Cas,” Lisa says.

“Look, I don't really wanna talk about this - ”

“ - I just,” Lisa begins, frowns, pauses. “You didn't mention he was a he.”

“I'm not in the freaking closet or anything. Just not in the habit of bringing up the fact that I swing both ways when chicks hit on me at bars.”

“I'm sure you said girlfriend.”

“ _You_ said girlfriend. I just didn't correct you because I figured I'd never see you again and it was totally fucking irrelevant, which it is by the way. Irrelevant. He's probably never gonna talk to me again, anyway.”

“Okay,” Lisa says, and doesn’t bring it up again. It isn't okay. Dean can see by the way she looks at the table for a little too long that it's not okay, and he can't even blame her. They're strangers. They don't know a damn thing about each other, expect the shiny, polished things they shared as a prelude to sex. Their entire conversation until this week was little beyond foreplay. None of this is _okay._

*

And then, and _then_ , Cas actually answers his fucking call, when he’s stood in the kitchen with his phone pressed so tightly against his ear that it hurts, with Lisa and Sam in the next room. 

_“What?”_ Cas demands as a greeting, his voice colder than ice, gritty and, fuck, Dean loves him. He _loves him_ and it doesn’t matter, because it’s never fucking mattered. Being in love with Cas has never made any material difference to anything about his life, and that’s the crux of it. It never _made a goddamn difference_ because life happened and kept on happening and kept on fucking Dean over, and he just dealt with it.

“Hello to you too, Cas,” Dean breathes, his whole chest aching with it. He slams his eyes shut and tries to will away the distance, because they shouldn’t be talking about this from this far away. It’s not _fair_. It’s not fair on Cas -- fucking _wonderful_ Cas, whose only ever hurt him by accident, who, for some reason Dean doesn’t know, told Gabriel that they were back in contact even though he so vehemently said that he wouldn’t do until Dean made a commitment -- and it’s not fair on Dean.

He doesn’t _want_ this. 

“Dean,” Cas says, his voice more impenetrable than Dean’s ever heard it.

“Guessing there’s no chance you’re still in Kansas?” 

“No.”

Dean’s everything plummets. 

“Cas, please let me explain,” Dean says, swallows, pinching his forehead with his thumb and trying to loosen the tight feeling in his chest.

“Explain why, after stating you want to work out our relationship status in person, when I tell you I'm going to be in the same state as you, you would fob me off then not call me for over a week with no word or indication of when you would deign to contact me?” Cas demands, voice crystal clear and, shit, the only thing he wants to do right now is _speak to him_. Not like this. Not over the damn phone, like they’ve been doing for months, but to sit there and pour his fucking heart out.

“Yeah, okay, it sounds pretty damn bad, I get that -” 

“ - Gabriel saw you on a date, Dean.”

“What the -? I haven’t been on any fucking dates, that was -”

“What happened?”

What _happened_?

He… he hasn’t said the words _I might be having a kid_ out loud, at all, and… and he’s got some of Lisa’s words about how Cas would feel about the timing of all of it buzzing round his head, and, and, he doesn’t know what to say. He can’t talk about this shit yet. Sam is barely talking to him and Bobby’s pissed and Sonny doesn’t think he can do it; he’s getting walls and walls of disappointment from every direction he looks at, and he can’t take that from Cas. He can’t _take it_. He can’t deal with any of this, let alone all of this at once, and he needs… he needs to _explain_.

Cas deserves an explanation. He deserves a lot fucking more than an explanation, but ---

Where is he supposed to fucking _start_?

“There - there was... a situation and I'm still slap fucking bang in the middle of it -”

“ - what situation?” Cas spits out.

He can’t do it. He can’t fucking do it. He can’t say _I got some chick pregnant twenty four hours before I drove to you, guess that means we’re breaking up_ because that makes all of this shit real, and he’s not there yet. He’s not _there_.

He wants to talk to him. He wants to talk to Cas so damn badly. He’s wanted to talk to him for months and months and months and it’s what he wants now. He wants _Cas_. It wouldn’t be a fun conversation. It’d be a fucking disaster, because, because there’s no way in hell this doesn’t break him.

He needs to see him. He needs a goddamn hug. He needs…

He needs to _speak_. 

“Cas, this isn't a phone call kind of conversation, I -”

“Really? Really Dean? Do you know the reason I was in Kansas last week? Inias had a heart attack. Two heart attacks and by the time I was home, he was already in surgery for a bypass and….I needed a hug and instead I was treated to a Dean Winchester classic strategy. _Dammit, Dean,_ I didn’t need a commitment from you. I just needed a fucking hug.”

Cas _needed him_. Cas needed him and he was being punched in the face by his little brother and he was moving his pregnant ex-three night stand into his apartment, while the closest thing Cas has to a father figure was _in hospital_. 

He’s broken everything. He’s already broken _everything_.

“He okay?” Dean says, voice thick. “Is he?”

“Yes, Dean, he's recovering well from surgery. Thank you for asking,” Cas says, voice so thick with sarcasm that Dean’s gut aches. He wants to fix this. His instinct is to _fix this_ because --- god, he loves Cas. He loves him. He can’t goddamn believe how long he managed to suppress it. 

“Cas, I'm really fucking sorry, if I'd known -”

“ - You didn’t stay on the phone for long enough for me to explain,” Cas snaps, “I tried to tell you, Dean, and you hung up. I understand you have a ‘situation’ which must be taking up a lot of your time -- ”

“Cas, please, fucking please, I just need --”

“What exactly do you fucking need from me, Dean?”

“Cas,” Dean says, and, fuck, how can a single word be so fucking devastating? It’s _done_. They can’t carry on like this. Cas doesn’t trust him and Dean can’t move. That was the only way they could make it work long term, because already the distance has gotten under his skin and caused that infernal, maddening, _ache_. Cas is a student. He’s going to be a goddamn post-grad student. Dean’s… Dean’s going to have a kid. They haven’t got a future, here. There’s _nothing_ left for them.

“This conversation is pointless. You have no intention of giving me what I need. You never had any intention of giving me what I need.”

And _that’s not true_. It’s not true. He always had intentions, when it came to Cas, he always wanted stuff, he just didn’t know how any of it translated into real life. He _wanted_ them to live close and _be close_ and --- maybe he can’t make the future work, but Cas should know that Dean would give pretty much everything to rearrange the world in a way that didn’t fuck them over. 

“Cas, dammit, that’s not….Sam applied to Yale early admissions-”

“ - Which you would have known for months.”

“ - He didn't tell me, Cas, but -” Dean begins, desperate, but Cas is already cutting across him. 

“Your brother has made a grander declaration of commitment to our relationship than you,” Cas says, and it’s fucking true. It’s _true_. He can’t even fucking deny it, but it’s not the whole story. It’s not what he _meant_.

“Damnit, Cas, please listen to me -” Dean says, begs, and he’s half aware of Sam at the doorway to the kitchen before he turns on the spot and disappears, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter when Cas sounds like he’s about to fucking cry, over a thousand miles away, and there’s not a damn thing Dean can do about it. 

“No,” Cas says, “No.”

“Please, hear me out here, Cas. I need you to listen to me.”

“I needed you, Dean, and you didn't call for a week - “

“Fucking - I, damnit, I forgot you freaking called, Cas. That whole conversation just dropped out of my head because of this, because of this situation, and I - it didn’t even register that you were in Lawrence, I didn’t even hear that - and then Gabriel text me to tell me I was an asshole and I - “

“You forgot that I called you?” Cas asks, and there’s something despondent about it. Cas has given up. Dean hasn’t even explained, yet, and Cas has given up on him. On _them_. He didn’t call Dean after that one aborted attempt. He didn’t send him a single goddamn text message and now he’s _given up_. 

“Castiel,” Dean says, “I swear I have an explanation for this -”

“An explanation that you’re not prepared to give?”

“It’s not like that.”

“I have an explanation for you,” Cas says, “You never intended for us to resume our relationship, but you are lonely, so you continued to put off the difficult conversation with no intention of us ever talking about it, and then you panicked when I said I was in Lawrence.”

Cas deserves to know how untrue that is, because Cas uses these things as a sword against himself. Dean didn’t tell him he loved him the first time round, and Cas thought that meant he was unlovable. There’s not much left he can do, but ---

Cas should know how he feels. 

“I wanted to see you. I’ve wanted to see you for months, Cas. I - the whole fucking reason I said I wanted to talk, before, is because I wanted to tell you that I was in.”

“You were in?” Cas says, and… and _fuck_. He didn’t mean to say it like that. He didn’t mean this conversation to happen _like this_.“You've changed your mind. You’ve changed your fucking mind before you even told me. You, this is prom all over again, except this is my life, Dean. Why? Why are you doing this to me again?”

“Goddamnit, Cas, I need you to calm down and listen to me.”

“Do you think that this relationship will work out?”

“I,” Dean begins, but he doesn’t. He _doesn’t_. He doesn’t and it’s not just because of Lisa, but it’s because that Cas doesn’t trust him, because Dean wasted their fucking opportunity by not letting go of their shitty history, because Cas told him to hang tight and deal with his crap over Christmas, and because Dean is scared of commitment with daddy issues and an inability to go after what he wants. They were halfway to doomed before any of this Lisa stuff came up, and now…

God, he wanted it. He wanted it so goddamn much.

“Dean.”

“No,” Dean breathes, and it fucking guts him. It straight up _guts him_ and it’s worse when he can hear Cas’s hitch of breath. “But I - Cas, I did, okay. I did. I was there, dammit, that's what I wanted to talk to you about and I - I need to see you, Cas, to explain -”

“You want to explain why you don’t want to be in a relationship with me,” Cas says, and now the fight has gone out of his voice, and it’s just stripped back, plain brokenness. “That’s the conversation you want us to have.”

“It's not about what I want.”

“It has always been about what you want, Dean, and clearly you do not want this.”

_No._. He wants this more than he’s ever wanted anything in his freaking life, it’s just that’s never made a fucking difference, and --

There’s something building at the back of his eyes that he doesn’t want to deal with.

“Cas,” Dean says, begs almost, because...

“No,” Cas says, and Dean can’t _listen to him_ sound like that. All he wants is to reach out and give him a goddamn hug. To be able to freaking _comfort him_ and explain. He wants them to be able to sit there and grieve over this together and, oh fuck, he _wants_. “I am angry, Dean, and I am upset and I don’t want to listen to you.”

“If I fly out there and talk to you will you hear me out?”

“You’d do that?” Cas asks and... and his voice has changed. Shifted. Cas would listen to him. Cas would _hear him out_ , but...

“Yeah,” Dean exhales, but his heart is already sinking, because he can’t. Lisa is here. He’s moving. He’s got to find a way to pay for Sam’s rent and he doesn’t know how much babies cost, but he’s pretty sure that they're damn expensive, and once again he’s up shit creek with no _fucking money_. And he can’t leave. That was part of the deal: he shows up when he says he’s going to show up, and he _said_ he’d show up. He didn’t say he’d take off to fucking Connecticut to talk to his ex-boyfriend. He’s lost Cas already and he’s halfway to losing Sam and he _can’t lose this too_. “I - I might need to deal with this thing first, but then I --” 

“You want me to wait until you have resolved your situation before you tell me why we can't be together?” 

Of fucking course Cas isn’t going to go for that. Obviously.

“I just… I just need a couple of months,” 

“No,” Cas says, voice raw but solid, “That's not good enough.”

“I know that, Cas, I know and I wouldn't ask if, if I didn’t -”

“No,” Cas says, “I’m done, Dean. I’m sorry, but that's the way it is.” 

And that’s _it_. That’s when his chest caves in and the tears come at him like a freight train, because… this was always going to happen. It was always going to end up this way, but his soul fucking aches, and --- it hurts. It _hurts_. 

“What happened to ‘I’m in until you make it explicitly clear that you don't want me to be’?” Dean asks, choking back as much emotion as he can, with far too much of it spilling out anyway. He’s crying like a fucking asshole even though he’s not in the slightest but entitled to, because _he did this_. This is Dean’s fucking fault, all of it, and he’s breaking Cas’ heart and he’s breaking his own and he didn’t want any of this to pan out like this. 

“You did make it explicitly clear, Dean, that however you think you feel, you don’t want this.”

_He wants this more than anything_.

“Please,” Dean breathes, with the only oxygen left in his lungs, “Cas, I --- I’m on my knees, here. Give me… just give me some more time.”

“Don’t you think,” Cas says, even, his voice arranged into something sharp and piercing that shreds his insides and floors him more than any of the rest of their conversation. “That I’ve given you enough?”

Cas is _right_. 

Cas is abso-fuckingly-lutely right. Dean doesn’t deserve anything else and there’s not a single fucking word _left_ , because anything else he says is just going to make it worse. Cas is done. He’s _out_ , and Dean can’t blame him for a hot fucking second. 

Dean hangs up and walks straight out of his fucking apartment through the front room to head for his damn car, which will always be more home to him than anywhere else he could live.

Lisa follows him. 

“Dean,” Lisa says, settling to lean against the hood of the impala next to him, like he and Sam used to do whenever they needed to have _a talk_ , except she’s softer, and pregnant, and the catalyst for all of this. He doesn't know her. He met the version of her that was on the pull: the Lisa she presented to the world when trying to act some good old fashion cheap sex. Dean doesn't know her, at all. “For what it’s worth -”

“ - Lise,” Dean says, throat thick with mostly unshed tears (pushed back and down, down, because he can't right now. He can't) and the desire to run, to do _something_ with all these bullshit emotions rather than feel like they’re smoking out his body. There’s going to be nothing _left_. His _everything_ is a vacuum right now. A black fucking hole of emotional crap, because… he’s not going to see Cas again. Talk to him. Have that hug he’s been pining over for months. “I can’t.”

“You’re not how I expected,” Lisa says, after a long few moments of quiet. It’s cold. He’s objectively aware of that, but mostly there’s too much else swirling in his gut for him to think about that. “You’re _more_ , somehow.”

“More,” Dean repeats, without looking at her. They’ve been learning about each other. He’s learnt a helluva lot more about Lisa these past couple of days than he’d ever expected to, and his careful constructed veneer of _easy going, not a care in the damn word, wayfarer_ is totally shot to hell.

“You didn’t tell me your brother was a kid,” Lisa says, gentle, “The way you talked --- it sounded like he was an adult, you know, that when you said you looked out for him that it was regular brother stuff. Not, that you had custody of a teenager.”

“Sam’s emancipated.”

“He’s seventeen.”

“Court says he’s an adult,” Dean says, squaring his jaw.

“Dean,” Lisa says, quiet. “What happened?”

“What?”

“ _Dean_ ,” Lisa says, “I just need to know why this is so important to you. You just… you’re gutting your whole life and pulling it apart, and… Dean, I was expecting a saliva swab and a see you the fuck later, and I _get that_ , because you’re twenty two. We met for a weekend and fooled around. You were on a fucking road trip, with your kerouac dreams, meaningless sex and too many beers, except it turns out that you drive another six hundred or whatever miles to help out your high school ex, and you feed and clothe your teenage brother, and you rip your whole life apart for a knocked up fling,” Lisa says, not looking at him, but close enough that Dean can feel her warmth bleeding through his skin. He likes Lisa. He always _liked her_. She was bad ass and hot and he liked that she really freaking _lived_. She owned her decisions and she made crap happen. She didn’t stay living out of her parents house because it was easy, but she went out and got herself an apartment, and a job she liked, and she approached random guys in bars because she wanted to. He likes her, he just doesn't know her, and he doesn't really know if he what a her too. “I… I had this whole _decision_ to make, but you just --- dropped everything. I need to know why.”

“Does it fucking matter?”

“You have co-dependencies issues with your brother, right?” Lisa says, “That was my second impression of you, you know. That you sure as hell talked about your brother a lot for a grown-ass man. Didn’t exactly know he was _seventeen_ and that you spent your early twenties in a custody battle with the state,” Lisa says, “But I clocked it.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, blinking hard, “You’re smart.”

“You said you'll move away from him and leave him without a home. I mean, shit, Dean. You’re doing something incredible and destructive to your life,” Lisa says, “And I think it matters why.”

And maybe it does.

“The first time my dad left us alone for a few days I was twelve,” Dean says, flat. All of this is going to come out in the wash, anyway. They're stuck with each other. "Before that it was … The odd night. Maybe a weekend. He left us with thirty dollars, a pack of bacon, a box of lucky charms and half a loaf of bread. A whole fucking week. That's the first time I skipped a meal to make sure Sam got fed. He was eight. He thought three days of lucky charms was the best thing ever.”

“Sam said he died.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “He left us for good a long damn time before that. Just… Didn't come back. Cut off his phone. Cut off his credit cards. We got evicted. Managed to get by sofa surfing for four fucking months - with Cas and his family, mostly - until we wound up in the care system. And you know, Cas,” Dean says, his name tasting like broken glass, “His dad ditched out when he was seventeen. Straight up just left, not before fucking up his head.”

“He’s not due till May, you know,” Lisa says, “The fun doesn’t start till then. You could move later. I wouldn't hold it against you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “But there’s… doctors appointments and… you said you’ve been getting sick, and if you can’t work, Lise, than I gotta --- I gotta do something. I gotta be there.”

“Okay,” Lisa says, pushing herself off the impala and looking at him, really looking at him. “How’s this. If you’re in, _really in…_ ”

“I’m goddamn in, Lise, what more have I gotta do to convince you?”

“Okay,” Lisa says, “Then I move here until your brother finishes high school.”

“What?”

“Dean,” Lisa says, “I’m working a desk job for shit pay because teaching yoga is already damn near impossible, living with my _parents_. You’ve got a life here. You’ve got a steady job and you’ve got your brother and he’s a _kid_ and even thinking about moving is tearing you up -”

“ - Lisa, I’d _do it_. I swear to fucking god, Lisa, that I’d -”

“ - _but you don’t have to_ ,” Lisa says, “Dean. I just heard you get your fucking heart ripped out. You say that you wanna be a dad, here, and all I’m thinking is that _of all the people_ in the world I’m pretty fucking grateful that you’re the one who knocked me up. You’re sweet, Dean. You’re responsible. You’re stubborn and your brother may hate me, but I can _see_ that he’s smart and ambitious and he loves you to death. That’s _you_.”

“That’s,” Dean begins, heart in his throat, chest swelling and breaking and already shattered. “You’d do that? You’d move?”

“You know what, screw this if you want in you’re in shit,” Lisa says, “Dean, I want you involved. I want you _with me_.”

“Okay,” Dean breathes. 

Lisa kisses him on the cheek, just for a moment, before she heads back into their apartment block. 

And then Dean crawls into the back seat isn't he impala, and he breaks down and fucking sobs. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Lisa leaves in April._

_She leaves in April and the first fucking thing Dean knows about it is coming home to find his apartment stripped bare, and Lisa sat on his couch with a suitcase by the door, handbag bundled on her lap, waiting to tear up his life all over again._

.

Sam’s acceptance letter to Yale University arrives on the twenty fourth of January, nestled between the gas bill and a birthday card from Charlie. He recognises the _damn font_ even before he turns it over and sees the return to address, and he feels… a fat load of nothing about it. He expected it would be devastating, churn up all his complicated, doomed hope about Cas, cut off his oxygen supply and leave him wrecked in his kitchen, but it just about figures. 

He knew Sam would get into Yale. He remembers enough about everyone else applying for college to know the big, heavy envelopes are the ones with good news, and there it is. Everything he wanted in the world, three weeks ago.

Dean brings it back up to the apartment and puts on a pot of coffee and drinks a mug and a half without opening the card from Charlie or the gas bill, a grim humour settling in his gut.

Sam might pick Yale after all. 

Sam's key turns in the lock as Dean's topping up his coffee, and Dean's chest flips over, but he doesn't bother looking up. Sam's been in an out for the last couple of weeks without saying a damn word, and Dean's not gonna goddamn fight him on it. He took the news that Lisa would be living with them until the baby was born with as much grace as Dean would have expected him to, then spent two days sleeping in Bobby's spare room. He's as good as out the door again and Dean's gonna have to be fine with it, because there's not a fucking thing Dean can do about it. He doesn't know that he blames him. Maybe a bit. When he's awake all night on their shitty sofa, thinking.

He listens as Sam rummages around his room then spills back out into the front room without saying a damn word.

“Sam,” Dean says, without standing up, “You've got mail.”

Sam steps into Dean's view and frowns at him with his eyes narrowed like he's calling bullshit on Dean's post line, even if it is true.

“You can take my room instead of sleeping on the sofa, Dean,” Sam says, knee nudging the pillow Dean's been using to sleep on. “You knew I wasn't going to be back last night.”

Right, because even though Bobby seems more or less on Sam's side of all this (in that Bobby said ‘Sam's a dumbass teenager, it's about time he acted like one. Give him some damned space’), he's still managed to talk Sam into at least telling him if he's not going to show up. He gets numbing, emotionless texts from Sam that he almost always deletes immediately. _Staying at Sarah's; Won't be home; will be back tomorrow._

“No,” Dean says, firmly. “Here's your post.”

“The sofa cost like thirty dollars, Dean, it's shit.”

“It's a weighty envelope,” Dean says, “Congratulations, Sam.”

Sam actually looks at the envelope, then, expression unfathomable as he opens it. Dean doesn't watch him. He just drinks his damn coffee and tries not to think about any of this. He hasn’t got long before Lisa wakes up, and he’s been doing his best to sham being okay in front of Lisa. She's got enough to deal with without Dean's crap.

“I… I got in,”

“Figured,” Dean says, flat, as he heads back to the kitchen for a third cup. “Proud of you.”

Sam follows him.

“What?” Dean asks, as Sam hovers there in the doorway. They haven't had another argument, but they haven't really had much of anything. He'd been expecting Sam to wear out his anger and corner him into an emotional talk at some point during week two, but it hasn't happened. Not yet.

“Just,” Sam begins, “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” Dean deadpans back.

“Lisa said you're going out for a meal later.” 

“Right,” Dean says, dry. It wasn't his idea. He fucking hates birthdays, because they always end up totally sucking. He can't remember one that wasn't completely goddamn terrible and he hadn't been looking forward to this, either, because he and Bobby are being polite about everything, Sam isn’t even managing that and Cas, well. Cas is out of the picture. Lisa organized it.

“Do you want me to come?” Sam asks. 

“What kind of fucking question is that?” Dean asks, finally turning to look at him. Sam is a goddamn kid. Dean was sleeping in his car when he was Sam's age, but the whole point of everything was that that wouldn't happen to Sam. The whole _point_ was supposed to be that Sam had more of a chance: a safety net. The knowledge that if it all went tits up he'd have someone to call, who wasn't restricted by the state rules or other priorities. Someone who'd drop everything and drive. And now, he doesn't get it. 

“Look, Dean -”

“Do whatever you want,” Dean says. “I'm going to work.”

“Would it kill you to tell me what you actually feel about something, for once?” Sam demands, his voice twisting into something sharp, “If you want me to come then I'll come.”

“Yes,” Dean says, sharp. “You're my goddamn brother.”

“Okay,” Sam says, and that's all he gets before his brother pulls his bag over his shoulder and leaves for school.

*

Lisa picks a steakhouse that does a goddamn incredible side of mac and cheese that he went to with Cassie once, freaking years ago, and when he gets there she smiles and passes him a freaking _star wars_ mug wrapped in their leftover Christmas paper. It’s emblazoned with a picture of Darth Vader on one side, and the other says _I am your father_ , and it’s ridiculous and freaking awful and several kinds of sweet. She smiles as he opens it, tucking her hair behind her ear as she says ‘I remember saying you were a fan’. 

*

_“Why?” Dean asks, flat. He knows her well enough to know that if she’s packed her bags, then that’s it, because Lisa knows her own mind. She makes a damn decision and she runs with it; lives with it; embraces all the damn consequences._

_Lisa is teary eyed and stubborn and her resolve is iron clad._

_“I feel like,” Lisa says, jaw clenched, with a hand on her hip, “Like I’m on my own.”_

*

Cas doesn't acknowledge his birthday. 

That fact in itself isn't exactly a fucking surprise, because he gave no indication in that phone call that he was ever going to speak to Dean again, but some wistful part of his chest kept reminding him that _last time_ he still got a birthday text.

At one AM, when there's still nothing Dean walks to the kitchen to pour himself a scotch to burn the acrid taste of disappointment from the back of his mouth. He knocks back a fifth of whiskey straight off and slams his eyes shut. 

Cas is not there anymore. Moving anywhere but Indiana is not an option. He can't have a kid and a long distance relationship. He can't do it, and Cas thinks Dean's wasted enough of his time, so it's done. They're _done_ and there's no goddamn use in dwelling on the fact that it feels like someone's got his heart in a clamp that they keep on tightening, because he's just going to have to get the hell over it. 

He goes to pour his second glass and knocks over his damn Star Wars mug while he's fumbling with the bottle, and --- _I am your father_ \---- and suddenly he's eight years old and watching John Winchester drinking until he passed out on the anniversary of Mary Winchester's death. 

He…. he's a kid, sat in the doorway of their motel room, and John Winchester is there with one hand clutched around the neck of the bottle and the other round his glass, and he doesn't notice Dean's up and watching him for three fucking hours -- it's cold as balls cause the heating’s bust and Dean sits there and watches with a leadened stomach until Sam wakes up. They're sharing a battered single bed with scratchy sheets and Sam is cold to the core and has no goddamn idea why everyone's so miserable today, so Dean shuts the door with a loud click that he hopes will shake John Winchester out of his funk, and then he climbs back into bed and wraps his arms around his little brother and says _it’s okay, Sammy. I've got you_ and he says it again and again until he finally falls asleep.

And then it feels like he's going to throw up.

He's John Winchester. He's _John Winchester_. Dean's going to screw up this kid's life, because he's a broken shell of a person, because he drinks too much and he's stubborn and he hasn't got a fucking clue what to do with a kid. He --- he's going to ruin this poor, innocent fucking baby's life and --

And then he _is_ throwing up, getting to the bathroom just in time, and it's pure blind panic. Fear, dread, and -- fuck--- he didn't want this. He didn't want this, and he can't change that, there's nothing he can do about it , and --

John Winchester taking off for three days when Dean is nine. John leaving him with fifty bucks and no gas in the car when he's sixteen. John calling him on his eighteenth birthday and sending Dean’s whole being into a tailspin. John Winchester bleeding out in a car less than a hundred miles away, without a working goddamn phone number for his only blood relatives in the world. John Winchester rounding on a teary, stubborn, twelve year old Sam refusing to play by John's rules; up in his face with his jaw clenched; _I am your father_.

And ---

Sam is there with a glass of water, shutting the bathroom door behind him with a click, too long legs folded beneath him as he sits cross legged on the bathroom floor and waits.

Dean throws up again; whiskey, bile and panic.

Sam presses the water into his hand and sits, quiet, until Dean's slowed his breathing enough to drink.

He can't be John Winchester. He won't. He won't be a good man so haunted by ghosts and personal bullcrap that he breaks an innocent kids life, and…. and it's so much more than just showing the fuck up. He needs… He needs to be better at all of this shit. He needs to be better, period. He needs not to be broken and cynical and so goddamn damaged; he needs not to feel so fucking shattered every time he thinks about Castiel; he needs Sam not coming home at night not to feel like it’s pulling him apart, because he _knows how that story goes_. He knows what parenting fueled by grief and heartbreak and anger does. He’s lived it, and he can’t, he won’t ---

_He won’t do it_. 

“Dean,” Sam says, in his dumb pyjamas that barely fit him, that Dean bought him while he was still living at Sonny's. His eyes are wide and sincere and serious, and Dean doesn't want to fucking hear it. He’s been longing for Sam’s forgiveness and now it just churns up the dread lining his gut, because he can't do all of this at once. “I know this isn't your fault.”

“Goddamn right it isn't,” Dean spits out, standing up, legs still shaking as he goes to splash his face with cold water. He can’t look at Sam right now. He doesn't get to roominate, anymore. He doesn't get to dwell or pine or wallow around in his broken heart, because there's a kid. A goddamn kid. 

“And this is… big.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, lungs heavy. Tight. There’s six different kinds of panic blossoming in his rib cage, and he might throw up again, and he doesn’t want to talk about this. _He’s John fucking Winchester_. “I got the fucking memo about that Sam.”

“I wasn't…” Sam begins, swallowing around the words, “I wasn’t trying to make things harder,” Sam says, “But you just --- you just _threw all this stuff_ at me, and I -”

“- this is the worst goddamn apology you’ve ever attempted,” Dean says, gaze set on himself in the mirror. He always figured that Sam was the one that was most like John; stubborn and righteous, so goddamn sure of his own opinions, this ability to settle on tunnel vision that blocked Dean from the picture all together, but there’s a woman in the next room whose goddamn pregnant with his kid, and Dean’s drowning his feelings in liquor. _That’s_ not new, but there’s something familiar about the hardened line of gaze and the clench of his jaw in the mirror, and --- He can’t be that. 

“Dean,” Sam says, voice stronger as he stands up, tries to meet his gaze in the mirror with his heart worn all over his face. Dean raised him. He raised him because their father was too damn distracted by the rest of his pain and the rest of priorities to give enough of a damn to _show up_. “I won't go to Yale.”

“You know what,” Dean says, as his grip tightens on the sink, “You said you wanted me to get the hell away from your life. Well, congratulations, Sammy, you got exactly what you wanted.”

“Dean.”

“Like you said,” Dean says, turning to face him with his expression hard, “I’m not your parent, and I’m _not_ your guardian, and you’re not my goddamn responsibility. Do whatever the fuck you want.” 

Sam looks at him for a long time before he speaks again.

“Fine,” Sam says, hand on the doorknob, expression flat.

He throws up again after Sam leaves the room, another lurch of nausea hitting him the second shuts the door behind him.

After, he pours the rest of the scotch down the sink, and washes it down with every last drop of alcohol in the place, and then he emails his personal tutor that he’s met all of twice at the community college and asks her to sign him up for every damn credit he can fit in his schedule, and he texts Rufus and offers to work every Saturday till the end of time if he’ll he can get some kind of overtime pay, because he won’t be a deadbeat. 

He won’t do it.

*

__

_“Okay,” Dean says, snapping his jaw shut._

_“No,” Lisa snaps, her voice breaking, “It’s not _okay_ Dean. Don’t pull this stoic shit on me, I don’t…. I don’t _want_ to do this.”_

_“Well, packing your bags is a goddamn weird way of showing that.”_

_Lisa folds her arms like she expected this._

_“I’m going home.”_

_“Yeah,” Dean says, something sour and sharp sitting the back of his throat. He doesn’t look at her as he walks past her to put the coffee pot on, because he needs to do something with his hands that isn’t put his fist through a wall. “I figured.”_

*

“Hey,” Lisa says, stepping into the front room in one of her oversized T-shirt and nothing else combinations that would probably be really fucking hot under different circumstances, and now he doesn’t really know what the hell it is, except goddamn terrifying.

“Uh, hey,” Dean says, glancing up from the sofa and grabbing for the remote on automatic, even if that can’t be what woke her up. It’s on mute and he’s barely watching it, it’s just somewhere to point his gaze as he sits and stares and tries not to drown in any of his bullshit feelings about anything. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Figured,” Lisa says, assessing him for a few long moments before speaking again, “I’m making tea. You want one?”

“Sure,” Dean says, even though he fucking hates tea and everything about it, because it seems polite, and Lisa… Lisa is a goddamn stranger who sleeps in his bedroom and occasionally does his laundry while he’s at work. 

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep for shit if I wasn’t using all my energy growing a person,” Lisa says, when she comes back with tea, placing them both down on the coffee table as she nudges him with his knee to make room. Dean shifts and swallows, but they still wind up closer than he intended them to be thanks to the pillows and sheets he bunched up at the end of couch when he decided to give up on sleep all to-fucking-gether. Dean leans back on the sofa and picks up his damn tea with some meaningless, sentiments sticking at the back of his throat before they actually make it out. “It’ll taste like fuck all if you drink it now,” Lisa says, “Mind you, you leave it it'll taste like herbally ass, so…” 

“Awesome,” Dean deadpans, “You paid for this crap, because?”

“Morning sickness,” Lisa says, “And to pacify my mother.”

As it turns out, Lisa is pretty cool.

She hasn't mentioned Cas or any of that since their phone call. She's tried with Sam, much more than Sam's made an effort with any of this, and she takes up as little space as a pregnant chick possibly can in a two bed flat. She can't cook for shit. She told him that back in Indiana, but she's decided to try and learn and has spent the days Dean's at work watching YouTube videos about cooking Mexican food (her favourite) interspersed with marathon watching Netflix shows. They have alcohol free beer in their fridge. She's taken to doing all the damn housework because ‘what the hell, I guess until this thing pops out you can call me Miss stepford’ and she asks leading, slow questions about his life to try and learn things about him that he usually holds so close to his goddamn chest that he almost forgets they’re real. She swaps him casual, too honest truths about her own life: her parents nearly-divorced when she was thirteen, her father’s affair smoothed over and Not Talked About Again, her mum’s aloof disappointment when she dropped out of college to become a yoga teacher juxtaposed with her father’s quiet approval, the cold silence she got when she dropped the pregnancy bomb. In return, she coaxed out the story of the fire that killed Mary Winchester and a few more details than he hasn't shared with anyone for a long damn time. He _likes_ Lisa, it’s just that….

Neither of them really have a choice about this. 

“She’s not so hot about this plan,” Lisa says, after a little while of silence, “Then again, screw her, you know?”

“Your Mom already hates me?” Dean asks, mouth dry enough that he actually drinks some of his damn tea. Lisa folds her legs under herself and hugs one of the pillows to her chest, eyes fixed on the screen. “Usually they actually have to _meet_ me for that crap.”

“Don’t worry,” Lisa says, “She would’ve hated you anyway. You didn’t graduate college.”

“Neither did _you_ ,”

“Never said she made any sense; mom’s prerogative,” Lisa says, “Anyway, you were my New Year’s resolution, and that trump's motherly disapproval.” 

“ _I_ was your new year’s resolution?” Dean asks, as he takes another sip of tea.

“Well, telling you,” Lisa continues, through a yawn, and she shifts on the sofa in a way that means her shoulder bumps against his; their arms settling pressed together. “He’s up,” Lisa says, hand resting over the swell of her stomach, “Guess he hates tea, too.”

“I,” Dean begins, aborting a motion to reach out before it really starts, _because_ he has no fucking idea what he’s doing, and because pregnancy is kind of goddamn crazy, and because they haven’t exactly worked out any of these boundaries yet.

“Here,” Lisa says, reaching out and for his hand placing it on her bump again. It’s _weird_ in a kind of awesome, paralysing way that he’s not sure won’t ever scare him, and he closes his eyes for a minute as he feels him kick. That’s a _baby_. 

“It’s going to be okay, Dean,” Lisa says, which means Dean’s probably doing a shittier job of hiding how damn hard he’s found all of it than he thought. “I know this is a lot, but --- it is going to be okay.”

She falls asleep a little after that, head lolling onto his shoulder, until the slow, steady rhythm of her breathing pulls him into unconsciousness, too. 

*

__

_“I just --- I need to be at home,” Lisa says, “Fuck, Dean, this is all _too much_ and…. I need to be at home. You understand that, right?”_

_“Sure,” Dean says, “Except, _no_ because I’ve never had a goddamn home.”_

_“I’ve spoken to my Mom,” Lisa says, quiet, after his words have echoed in the silence. Bitter. Better left unaddressed. “She’s got an apartment set up. She and Dad are going to meet me halfway, and --”_

_“ -- How much is your rent?”_

_“What?”_

_“How much is your goddamn rent?”_

_“Dean,” Lisa says, a glug of emotion and anger bubbling up in her throat as she says the word, and now she’s fucking crying. She’s _stood there_ with her handbag clutched in her hand and she’s crying and she’s _pissed off_. “I am not taking your fucking money.” _

*

“This is stupid,” Lisa says, sleep bleary in the doorway to their front room, gaze flicking over where Dean’s watching muted episode of some traffic cop show to chase away the dregs of the night. “Your back hurts and you own a double bed.”

“I’m fine,” Dean says, fumbling to switch off the TV, “You should… you should sleep.”

“Come the hell to bed, Winchester,” Lisa says, “It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before. You’re beat.” 

“Lisa,” Dean says, “I don’t --- I’m fine.” 

“I’m not _propositioning_ you,” Lisa says, “It’s a little late for precaution, anyway.”

“I -”

“- either you get your ass in here and sleep on the other side of the damn bed like a normal person, or I’m sleeping on the sofa until this thing arrives, and don’t think I won’t tell my mother that you deprived a pregnant woman of a bed.”

*

__

_“I’m not screwing around here, Lisa. How much is your _goddamn rent_ \---?”_

_“ -- This is why,” Lisa says, “This is why I can’t stay here.”_

*

He can feel Lisa moving round the other side of the bed, and it’s goddamn _weird_ , because it’s been a long damn time since he’s shared a bed with anyone without it being after sex. Cas, definitely, but he can’t remember whether it was this time around, or that summer when he first got a place alone. He’s as tense as he’s ever been in his _own_ damn bed, already regretting this goddamn decision.

“It wasn’t like in those movies,” Lisa says, finally settling so she’s facing him, her features softened by the dark, “I did the test and… I just thought, _I can’t do this_ and I just left it in my bathroom and went to work,” Lisa says, through the dark. Dean turned the light off after he’d climbed into the wrong side of the bed, with an uneasy dread that he doubts is going to dissipate any time soon, “I didn’t do anything about it for two days. Didn’t tell anyone. Just carried on, and then when I got home I’d just stare at this damn test and it’s _positive_ reading, until it hit me that I’d _peed on it_ and I threw it out, and I didn’t…. I kept waiting to feel something. Thought that I’d get this protective rush of _something_ , but I just felt like a kid whose parents just told them they were moving house. That something huge and life changing was happening to me that I didn’t have a choice about, but that I'd have to deal with it either way and then --- and then I realised I _did_ have a choice,” Lisa says, voice velvet smooth, “And I didn’t want to make it. I figured… the condom had already made the choice for me, by breaking. In retrospect, that might have been extreme repressed stress talking,” Lisa says, through an almost smile, “And, I wanted a kid someday, so I said to myself _why not this one_ and then I named him.”

“Yeah?” Dean exhales, into the dark.

“Albert,” Lisa says, “After my grandad but, like I said, extreme stress. I didn’t even know if he was a he then, I just knew if he had a name then no one could talk me out of it, and by that point I knew it was the right thing to do,” Lisa says, “I didn’t tell anyone else for another week. I needed time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lisa says, shifting again, away from him, “See, you’re already better at this than me.”

Dean doesn’t believe a fucking word of it, but he lets the words wash over him as he shuts his eyes and tries to sleep, and not think about Sam next door but barely speaking to him, or about Lisa being so damn close, or about that never ending tug of _Cas_ that pulls at the back of his head.

“By the way,” Lisa says, in the breath before she falls asleep, “He’s called Ben.”

Ben.

*

__

_“I am working myself to _the bone_ to give you want you need.”_

_“I am a _person_ ,” Lisa bites out, the word flung into the room like a weapon, “I am not just some _responsibility_ , Dean, I am a real life fucking _human being_ and I can’t --- It’s like you don’t see me. I want,” Lisa says, eyes flashing, “I want _more_ from you._

*

Lisa meets him after work in his impala the second week in February, and it's weirder than weird to have Lisa behind the wheel of his car, slipping out the front seat to smile at him (he’d been reluctant as hell to let her have the keys), but neither of Lisa’s parents have been able to drive down to drop off her car yet, so he’d gritted his teeth and freaking dealt with it). A couple of the guys make a big noise because they're probably all secretly homophobic douchebags and made a big deal about him suddenly showing up with a woman (like Dean didn't update them via the medium biting their heads off when they asked about Cas,) and Lisa says they're going out for dinner.

She says that they both need a damn break, and she's not exactly wrong, but she's wearing a nice dress under her coat, she’s bigger than ever, and Dean can just _tell_ from the way she tucks her hair behind her ear that this is supposed to be some kind of date. 

The damned thing about all of this is exactly the thing he always wanted, near enough. Lisa is great. She’s funny and determined and strong; sweet and perceptive. She’s got the drive to make all of this work out. She’ll make sure that Ben gets a nice, white picket fence life and that he’s loved and protected and respects her. And that’s _exactly what Dean always wanted_. Normality, stability, safety. Family. The kind that weren’t co-dependent in virtue of shared brokenness and shitty histories, but the kind that were close _out of choice_. He wanted _kids_ , in an abstract sense. He wanted to _settle down_ , but ---

\--- He doesn’t want Lisa.

He misses Cas bad enough that it twists the knife in his gut, even though that’s fucking stupid. He never _had_ Cas; not really and sure as shit not this time round, with two occasions in this whole shitshow that they were in the same room, with no messages over Christmas and Cas not trying to contact him for a goddamn week because Dean cut off one call without a full explanation. He was never anywhere goddamn _near_ Castiel and Lisa… Lisa trusts him. Lisa agreed to live out of a suitcase of stuff until their kid was born because she could see that it was important to Dean. Lisa has been looking at him, these past couple of days, like she’s dreaming of giving this kid the happy, square, two parent upbringing that their of them really managed. 

He lost Cas years ago. There’s still a chance, with Lisa. 

Dinner is good. Pretty great, actually, and then there's Ben to think about.

It's neat, this way. Clean.

She leans forward and kisses him in their parking lot outside his apartment after dinner, and it’s… fine. When they’d met in Indiana, it’d been electric, alcohol-fuelled, and easy. Hot. _Now_ , he’s thinking torturously hard as he reaches forward to cup her cheek and forces himself to goddamn relax. 

And he thinks; fake it until you make it.

*

_“ I am giving you _every single_ fucking thing I have.”_

_“I know,” Lisa says, “I _know_ that and… I don’t _want_ to feel like this, I don’t _want_ to be this person. Fuck, Dean, I’m not _needy_. I’m not paranoid. I am not _like this_ , but this whole situation is chewing me up. It’s _consuming_ me.”_

_“Say what you fucking mean, Lise,” Dean snaps, “You mean _I’m_ chewing you up.” _

*

Charlie turns up at the garage after three weeks of Dean fobbing her off her texts and calls and facebook messages about freaking spring break. He really didn’t think she’d bother. He figured he’d been non-committal and vague enough that she’d give up on him entirely, but he hadn’t accounted for Charlie’s tenacity and commitment to their friendship.

“Hey,” Dean says, wiping his engine-greased hands on his jeans before turning to face her.

“Guess what,” Charlie says, “I’m in town.”

“Yeah,” Dean mutters, glancing back at the car, “Look, Charlie, I’ve got a lot of work to do,”

“Nope,” Charlie says, “Talked to your boss. Rufus, right? He says they’ve been trying to throw you out of the joint for weeks, so we’re gonna get some coffee, and you’re gonna tell me why you’ve been trying to avoid me.”

“I haven’t,” Dean deadpans, “I’m just busy, Bradbury. Anyway, I need a damn shower and a change of clothes,”

“That’s okay, I have very low standards,” Charlie says, “Come on, I’ll buy the coffee. Get you one of those sugary lattes you pretend not to like.” 

“Charlie,”

“Look, Dean, it’s not up to you to decide who gets custody of me in the divorce agreement,” Charlie says, voice heated, “You’re one of my best friends, _douchebag_ , so quit being a martyr and come with me for coffee. I don’t care why and how you broke up with Cas, Winchester, I am neutral and I love you, so stop being a dick.” 

In the end, it’s easier to agree.

It’s been a couple of weeks since he’s done anything that could be considered to be _socialising_ with anyone except Lisa. Sam isn’t really speaking to him, hasn’t really since the whole Lisa thing happened in the first place, and he’s skipped most of their usual Sunday dinners to force himself through reading and assignments for his evening college classes. Sitting in a coffee shop opposite Charlie Bradbury makes him feel uneasy, like he doesn’t fit in his own skin properly. 

“What did happen with Cas?” Charlie says, once she’s sat down with their coffees.

“What happened to I _don’t care why and how_?” Dean deadpans. 

“Okay, well, I don’t _care_ care, but --- Dean. Last time I saw you, it sounded a lot like you were gonna go for it, and then I get _radio freaking silence_ until Cas deins to send me the world’s vaguest update about you ‘feeling unable commit to a relationship at this time’ which sounds a lot like bull _crap_.” 

“Man, the levels to which I don’t want to talk about this,” Dean mutters, staring at his coffee. He hates talking about Cas. It makes his heart swell until it feels like it’s pressing up against his lungs, stopping him from getting enough oxygen into his system. It makes him ache. 

“Dean, you _love him_.”

“So fucking what?” 

Charlie's face crinkles into a frown and Dean already regrets everything, because she's looking at him, and the last fucking thing Dean needs in his life is people looking.

“What’s wrong? You’re sad.”

“I aint goddamn _sad_ , Bradbury, I just don’t like being cornered,” Dean says, taking a sip of his coffee and avoiding her eyes. There’s a reason he didn’t want to see her, and it wasn’t about him worrying she was wouldn’t be neutral about all this. “Look, Charlie, things change.” 

“What things?”

“Okay,” Dean says, pulling out his phone and pulling up his photos until he gets to the last sonogram. He’s bigger now, their kid, this incredible like smudgy blog of humanity who’s gonna be a real life freaking _human_ soon enough. He’s healthy, too, as far as they can tell. “Here you fucking go,” Dean says, pushing his phone in her direction.

Charlie blinks at him.

“Holy _wow_ ,” Charlie says, “Is -- is this?”

“This is Ben,” Dean says, “Or, this is gonna be Ben. In two months. His mom is a bendy yoga teacher I met in Indiana on my road trip. She’s living here until the kid is born, then we’re moving out to Indiana. Her brother’s got me fixed up for a job at a local garage starting in the summer, and Lisa thinks we should think about saving for a goddamn house deposit.” 

“And,” Charlie says, biting her lip, “And you told Cas about this?”

“Charlie -“

“So you just … dumped him?”

“Fuck, Charlie, he barely gave me a damn chance to tell him. Cas was waiting for me to fuck up. He didn’t trust me one inch, which is rich for someone as self fucking righteous as Castiel freaking Novak. I — I tried to get it out, Charlie, and I’m not saying I shouldn’t’ve tried harder, but I could tell the second he picked up the call that I was done with me.”

“Dean,”

“I forgot to call him back, because Lisa showed up with a fucking sonogram, and he didn’t —- he didn’t call again, Charlie, he didn’t text. He just _waited me out_ and then gave me hell about how he needed me, like there hasn’t been sixteen thousand other times when I’ve goddamn needed him and he didn’t show up, like he hadn’t just ignored me for a fucking week because telling his folks about us being in contact was inconvenient, like he doesn’t deliver his grand fucking sentiments about how he feels that he freaking _never_ follows up with action.” Dean snaps out, and he didn’t really realize that he was angry at Cas. He hasn’t felt a whole lot of anything, recently, and to have it suddenly tumbling out of his mouth into the coffee shop makes everything sharper, like the words twist themselves into spikes on the way out of his throat. “Yeah, I love him, but we’ve always been fucking terrible for each other, so what does it matter that it didn’t manage to spit out the whole story while he broke my heart all over again?”

“Okay,” Charlie says, “Okay, Dean, that’s —”

“— he doesn’t need to know about this shit.”

“Cas shuts the conversation down if your name so much as comes up,” Charlie says, "I wasn’t going to tell him, jeesh, Dean. I didn’t mean to drag stuff up. So, um. You’re having a baby?”

Fuck, that’s still weird.

“Right,” 

“Wowza, I don’t even know what to say to that. Mazel tov . And —- you’re moving to Indiana? What about Sam? And this Lisa lives with you? What is she like?”

“Which of those six thousand questions do you want me to answer?”

“Lisa,” Charlie says, “Wait, you have a two bed apartment. Are you like, together?”

“Uh,” Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck, “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Yes,” Dean says.

“So... ?”

“So, what?” Dean asks, “She’s — Lisa is good people. She’s been handling all this crap way better than I could and she’s… she tries, with Sam. She didn’t have to move out here, but, uh. She’s adaptable. Sweet.” 

“You kind of sound like you’re writing her resume.”

“Charlie,” Dean says, chest tight, “She’s great, okay. She’s hot and independent and firey and I like her just fine, and I gotta make this work.”

“Okay,”, Charlie says, chewing her bottom lip, “ But---”

“-- No,” Dean cuts across, sharp.

Charlie talks herself into a dinner invite, which Dean relays to Lisa on the phone outside the coffee shop. It goes down badly. It's short notice and Lisa's homesick and wary about Dean having coffee with some woman out of the blue when mostly all he does it _work_ , and the whole damn dinner is tense and much too long. It’s another stamp of proof that none of these different parts of his life fit together anymore. 

*

__

_“I don’t have any friends here,” Lisa says, “I don’t have any allies,”_

_“I am _on your side_.”_

_“No,” Lisa snaps, “You’re not. You’re on _Ben’s_ side. You don’t give a damn about me.”_

_“That’s… That's crap.”_

*

There is something _nice_ about coming home to something. 

He always basically hated living alone and rattling around the empty spaces of his apartment until the evening drained away, and that’s because he’s always been shit at being _on_ his own, and because it was always paired with knowing that Sam was at Sonny’s when he should be _here_. 

Sam is stubborn and leaves his books all over the place and bickers with Dean about the amount of bacon in the fridge, Dr Phil’s him on the regular and kept more or less to his own schedule. Well, _was_. Now, Sam is… tidy, _friendly_ and barely there. 

Lisa is getting better at cooking. She’s watched all of the movies in Dean’s collection twice over and launches into her opinions about batman the second he walks through the door. She asks about his work and his day and insists he try her terrible freaking guacamole before she laughs and chucks the whole lot of it away. On Sunday mornings, sometimes Ben wakes her up early with a kick to the bladder and she brings him coffee in bed on her winding route back to the bedroom.

It could all be a helluva lot worse.

“Hey,” Lisa says, slipping back under the covers and watching him reach for his coffee. She’s reading another of those parents books with overblown, awful anecdotes and overgeneralizations, that Lisa reads snippets outloud of whenever they’re particularly ridiculous. His life is _good_ , here. He… he should be enjoying it. “Long shift yesterday.”

There is something _nice_ about coming home to something, so why is the hell is he putting so much effort into not being at home?

“Right,” Dean says, “I, uh, swung by the library on the way home. Thought I’d text you.”

His dedicated student act is a load of shit and he’s pretty sure Lisa _knows_ that, too, but she’s yet to call him out on it. She’s accepted his line about needing to finish his bullshit community college degree with whatever scrubbed together credits he can manage, and the overtime, and the hours he’s spent trying to finish the damn car, which has half turned into a house / college fees / whatever the fuck babies need funds. There _were_ good intentions, at the beginning, and he’s not entirely sure that his intentions are _bad_ now, either. 

“Assignment done?”

“Nearly,” Dean mutters, even though he’s barely started it. “Think I’m gonna…. Gonna head back after lunch.”

“Bobby’s for Sunday lunch?”

“Maybe,”

“Sam’s coming,” Lisa says, lightly.

“What?”

“That’s what _I_ did yesterday, while you were working overtime. Hang out with your brother. I think he’s coming round.”

“Sam’s problem _aint_ you.”

“He helped me with the laundry,”

“Good,” Dean mutters.

“I’ve decided,” Lisa says, picking up her book and cracking open the page at a chapter entitled _the teenage years; how to communicate with your troubled teen_ which is way, way further on down the line than Dean wants to think about. “That _you’re_ gonna do the talk.”

“ _The_ talk?” Dean asks, “Lise, as a couple that got screwed by a faulty condom about half a decade before either of us were thinking about this, what makes you think _I’m_ the qualified one?”

“Well,” Lisa smiles, “You already gave Sam the talk.”

“You really did bond with my damn brother.”

“And he's a responsible teenager.”

“How d’you work that out?”

“Well, no one's pregnant yet.”

“If that's the criteria, then I was a goddamn saint. Until recently, obviously.” Lisa's face crinkles slightly. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lisa says, “Just. It would have been harder for you than most to get someone pregnant.”

Dean squares his jaw and drinks more coffee, because no chance in hell is he touching _that_.

“My talk with Sam more or less changed into me telling me about how I lost my damn virginity. Not sure that's how you wanna play it with Ben.”

“Lost mine the regular way,” Lisa says, “On my boyfriend’s single bed in the half an hour slot between getting home from school and his Mom getting home. Seventeen.”

“Fifteen,” Dean throws back, “Skiving school. Sofa.” 

“Man or woman?” Lisa asks, forcefully light. Dean surpressess the desire to roll his eyes and swallows. 

“Not sure you can call a sixteen year old a woman.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Do I miss _what_?” Dean asks, even if he knows exactly fucking _what_. The last thing Dean wants to goddamn talk about with Lisa is his perchance for liking dick, because it’s pretty damn clear that it weirds her out even if she’s just about liberal enough to know that it would probably be an asshole-move to actually come out and _say it_. 

“Men,”

“We’re not talking about this,” Dean says, flat.

“So, _yes_.”

“No,” Dean says, “That's not how this works.”

“Dean -”

“There was only ever two freaking guys, Lisa, it's not a big fucking deal.”

“But one of them was Cas,”

“I haven't had regular sex with a dude since I was eighteen. If I missed dicks so much I would have gone and _gotten dick_.”

“How,” Lisa begins, then stops herself, rewords the question in her head. “What part did you --?”

And they are so, so not having that conversation.

“It clearly makes you goddamn uncomfortable, so forget it, it’s done. From now on, I'm straight, okay?”

“Dean,”

“You can tell your mom and your friends whoever the fuck else that I'm strictly into chicks, or whatever you want, and I can ---- I can goddamn deal.”

“I already told them.”

“What?” Dean asks, because now he can just imagine their conversations. Discussing Dean's fucking business while he was at work. Dissecting his sexuality. “Perfect. I, whatever, just sell them that crap that straight people always spit out about teenage confusion and not meeting the right girl yet, because I'm through with all of it.”

“That's not what I asked for,” Lisa says, as Dean crosses the room and pulls on a t-shirts, sweats and spills into the front room. They haven’t argued before, somehow. Mostly, Dean’s defaulted to Lisa’s opinion on just about everything, because she’s pregnant and freaking miles away from home and Dean reckons that beats any petty thing he could have some issue about, and _that’s_ more important than _this_ , too, but he’s tired. He’s _tired_ of working and studying and coming home and plastering a damn smile on his face and making nice with some women he barely goddamn knows, who’s been invited into every last corner of his life because of a freaking accident. 

If this had all gone how it was supposed to, it wouldn’t have mattered that Lisa just flat out doesn’t _understand_ this stuff. He’d never have found out about her opinion _at all_ and… it’s not her fault. She didn’t know. She _doesn’t_ know and he’s not in the frame of mind to explain it to her. 

_He needs to get out of here_. 

“Dean, listen to me,” She continues, following him out. Sam is in the front room, of fucking course, and looks up for a moment before dragging his gaze back down and tries not to interfere in what’s obviously a domestic. Their _first_.

All he ever did with Cas was fight. He’s pretty sure them arguing about _whatever_ was the most constant part of their relationship, every single time around, but Dean _needs to make this work_. 

“It’s done.”

“Is this what you did with Cas? Compartmentalize and put anything you’re uncomfortable talking about off limits?” Lisa demands, and it’s too fucking accurate for Dean to take it well. Abso-goddamn- lutely that’s what he did. That’s what he _does_. Lisa just hasn’t been around long enough to work that out. 

“We are _not_ talking about Cas,” Dean cuts back, sharper than he’s ever spoken to her before. He needs to _rein it in_ because he’s pretty sure this isn’t Lisa’s fault. He’s overreacting and he’s being unreasonable and none of this really matters compared to the big freaking pictures - Ben, Indiana, being a _family_ \- but now all his frustration about all of this shit is rising to the services and… and he’s not talking about Cas. Not now. Not _ever_. 

Nothing good comes out of thinking about it. 

“It's not about him being a guy, Dean,” Lisa says, unapologetic and undeterred by Sam sitting _right there_. “It’s about you not being over him.”

Dean doesn’t have a hope in hell of defending himself against _that_. 

“Well, I'm straight now, remember?” Dean bites out, humourlessly, as he reaches for his jacket. “So it's fucking done.”

“What are you doing?” Lisa asks, arms folded. 

“Going for a damn run,” Dean says, “Meet you at Bobby's.”

He doesn't go.

(Later, when he’s had enough time to fucking breathe, he cooks dinner. It’s an apology of sorts. Three of Lisa’s favourite mexican dishes and her alcohol free beers. They eat on the sofa in front of a movie, her choice, and she makes him watch of some chick flick that makes he want to blow his damn brains out before she sighs, changes the channel and settles against his side. She’s warm and solid and reads more quotes from one of those parenting books until she drags a laugh out of his chest and Dean needs to get fucking a grip, because it could all be much, much worse).

*

__

_“Look,” Lisa says, taking a deep breath, “I’m not taking him away from you. I’m not _keeping you_ away, but I can’t be here. I can’t. I’m going home.”_

_“Yeah,” Dean says, “I got the damn memo, Lisa, what the hell do you want me to say? Or were you supposed to be the hell away from here by the time I got home?”_

_“No,” Lisa says, “That’s _not_ what this is, okay?”_

*

Lisa knows something's up the second he gets in the car, throw a the groceries in the backseat and has maneuvered them out the damn parking lot before she's had time to ask if he managed to find everything he needed.

“What happened?” Lisa asks, hand landing on his knee to coax the tension out of his body. It doesn’t work. His instinctive reaction is to pull the hell away and retreat into himself which he needs to goddamn _stop_. He needs to _deal_ with his bullshit, because he needs this to _work_.

“Nothing,” Dean says, too quickly , “Just... Ran into an old friend.”

Lisa looks at him as he takes the corner too sharp, gaze piercing and a little too intent.

“An old friend,” Lisa says, voice slightly wooden. “You mean Cas.”

The fact that this is the second time that freaking _Cas_ has been brought up in conversation by Lisa in the past two weeks is bad goddamn news. 

“No,” Dean says, “His… His cousin.”

“His cousin?” Lisa asks, “Wow.”

“He, we used to be best friends,” Dean says, grip shifting on his wheel, “Doesn’t freaking matter. What time is your Mom due here?”

“Did he _say_ something?” Lisa asks, “Your ex-best friend.”

“No,” Dean says, “Pretty sure he didn’t see me.”

“ _He didn’t even see you?_ ” Lisa asks, folding her arms over her bump as she looks out the other window. “You ran out of a supermarket because you saw your exes _cousin_ -?”

“- look, if Gabriel saw me I’m pretty sure he’d punch me in the face,” Dean cuts across, “What time is your Mom gonna be here?”

“She’s an hour away,” Lisa says, “Wonder what kind of reaction _I’ll_ get if you see my cousin after _we_ break up.”

“Lisa,” Dean says, “You really wanna start this right we pull the meet your parents crap?” 

“No,” Lisa says, stubborn, “I want you to _admit_ the fact that you’re not over your ex.”

“Took three years last time and it didn’t stick,” Dean bites out, “Got no damn idea why you thought it would take three months this time.” 

Dinner goes about as well as Dean could have expected without Lisa even trying to back him up. 

*

__

_“Just _go_ if you’re going to go,” Dean says, heavy, “I’ll help you put your shit in the car.” _

_“God, Dean,” Lisa says, hot, “It’s like you’ve given up. It’s like you’ve got this fucked up idea that you can only have one thing in your life, and you cut everything else out. You _pretend_ like you’re this easy going, carefree guy who’s just interested in having a good time, but you carry round every shitty thing that’s ever happened to you like it’s proof that you don’t ever get to be happy, and I can’t deal with it. I can’t _do that_. Yeah, Dean, having a kid changes shit, it does, but it doesn’t mean that you cut every single damn thing that you like about your life away in case you _ever_ prioritise something else above your kid for a single freaking second. I _can’t_ act like my life is over at twenty three, Dean, I can’t just accept that this is the only thing I get, because I don’t believe that’s how life works. It’s not all or nothing, there’s a fucking _middle_ , Dean,” Lisa says, “You could’ve _said_ you didn’t want to be in this relationship, and saved us this shitshow of _complications_.” _

_Dean clenches his jaw, tight._

*

“Cars nearly finished, then,” Sam says, voice flat and not quite cold. It’s the first time in about three weeks that Sam has actively started a conversation with him and Dean hasn’t got a goddamn clue why he’s suddenly sought him out in Bobby’s garage, because it sure as hell feels like they haven’t got a lot to say to each other anymore. 

“Couple of weeks work left,” Dean says, without looking up from the engine. Looking at Sam makes it feel like there’s a hand wrapped around his heart, squeezing, and then he feels numb down to the tip of his toes, so it’s best if he doesn’t fucking bother. He can’t be what Sam needs and that's the bottom line.

“Dean,” Sam says, then pauses for a long time in the doorway before he steps into the garage and shuts the door behind him. “I got into Stanford.”

“Good,”

“And, uh, NYU and Columbia. Not Harvard.”

“Harvard are douchebags,” Dean says, not looking up from the car. “Well done, Sam.”

“Thanks,”

“How’s Sarah?”

“We broke up,” Sam says, “Couple of week ago.”

That stings. There's all this shit happening in Sam's life that Dean doesn't know about and he's nothing he can freaking do about it.

“Right.”

“She got into her first choice school. MIT,” Sam says, “Which is great, but…”

“Uhuh,”

“Dean,” Sam says, “Why are you doing this?”

“I'm fixing a fucking car, Sam, I don't tend to get philosophical about it.”

“You know I'm not talking about the car,”

“Fix up car, sell car, make money. That's about the sum of it.” 

“Lisa ---”

“--- Lisa knows just enough about cars to know this car is a sweet ride, not enough to think it's worth the money I can sell it for.”

“ - you're unhappy.”

“Piss the hell off, Sam,” Dean says, propping up the engine and not meeting his eyes.

*

__

_“I never _wanted_ you to compartmentalise your whole damn life away into _irrelevant_ so you’d force yourself to be this damn _robot_ ,” Lisa says, “Because you’re a human too, Dean, you’re not a damn _machine_. You can’t _will_ yourself to be someone else because you think that’s what we need, because that’s shit, and I _never asked you to_. Deal with your fucking _crap_ Dean. Talk to your brother; talk to your ex fucking boyfriend; talk to a shrink, talk to whoever the fuck will listen, but talk to _someone_ , because I’m not having you projecting your bullcrap onto Ben,” Lisa says, and there’s tears again, but she’s determined. Lisa is strong minded and strong, period, and she has always been way, way out of Dean’s fucking league. _

*

“I miss you,” Sam says, and now his seventeen year old brother is getting goddamn emotional in Bobby's damn garage. Dean sets down his wrench and sucks in a breath that turns his lungs to lead, because he can't be what Sam needs anymore. He let him down. He let him down, bad, and now the one freaking constant relationship in his life is messed up and fucked up, and he's strung out and exhausted and everything lately has been hard. He's been getting through by coffee and sheer determination; forcing himself through work and his evening classes and jamming a smile onto his face before he faces Lisa.

“Look, Sam, I…. I'm sorry that I can't --- that I can't do all that shit I promised. That I can't put you through college.”

“Screw that, Dean,” Sam says, “I don't give a damn about you putting me through college. I don't care about that. I miss _you_ , Dean. My big brother who sings crappy mullet rock and makes me watch star wars once a month.”

“Shit changes,”

“It doesn't have to, Dean.”

“Sam, I'm having a fucking kid.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “And there’s a difference between being a good father and losing yourself. I get… I _get_ what you’re trying to do.”

“That’s big of you,” Dean mutters, “Thanks, Sammy.”

“Don't call me that,” Sam says, “Not when you’re pulling this bullshit distant routine and acting like you don’t give a crap.”

“I’m not pulling anything,”

“I _gave you_ time to do this defense mechanism crap, Dean, but you’re _ruining your life_ and I’m through watching you do it ---”

“ --- _You’re through_ , huh?” Dean asks, “And what’s _that_ look like?”

“You can’t _brush me off_ because you don’t wanna deal with this,” Sam says, “Just because you can’t _lie to me_ about how you feel -”

“ - I’ve been lying to you about I feel since you knew how to fucking _talk_ , Sam.”

“And I’ve been seeing through it since about a week after that,” Sam counters, voice hot, “Dean, you can do this. _You_. Not some stepford version of yourself that doesn’t drink, doesn’t have opinions, doesn’t have any _fun_. You can’t just think yourself into being a whole different person. You can’t _cut me off_ and cut Bobby and Charlie out and pretend like you care about Lisa -”

“ - I _care_ about Lisa,” Dean cuts across, turning around and fixing him with a deadened stare. He _cares_ about Lisa Braeden. He cares about the hushed conversations she had to smooth everything over with her Mom after their disastrous goddamn visit; he cares about her balancing bowls on her bump as she guesses news headlines before they’re read out; he cares about the shampoo she likes and the food she wishes she could eat. He _cares_. He’s pretty shitty at delivering on what she needs, but he does his goddamn best. He picks up messages about cravings in his work breaks and he talks her out of drinking more coffee than the books said she could because she asked him too, right at the beginning. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Sam says, “I mean you can’t play happy families with Lisa and convince anyone hear that you mean it for a hot second. I don’t buy it, Bobby doesn’t buy it, and _Lisa_ doesn’t buy it. Not anymore, Dean. She stopped believing it a while back.” 

“Thanks for the tip,” Dean says, already retreating back into himself, walls going back up. He’s not talking about this. Not with anyone and definitely not with _Sam_.

“Dean,”

“Sounds like food’s ready.”

It’s more of an excuse to get the hell out of dodge than a legitimate reason to leave, but it turns out that he’s not far off the mark. He makes it into Bobby’s kitchen just as Ellen’s pulling a pot roast out of the oven.

“Smells good,” Dean says, easy, settling next to Lisa by the stove. She’s running hot all the time now, but she decided a long while back that she wanted to be the kind of Mom that could cook a Sunday roast that didn’t taste like ass and only partially came out of a packet, and she’s been mining Ellen and Bobby for pearls of wisdom.

“The potatoes are mine,” Lisa says, turning to offer him an almost-smile, “Roasted _and_ mashed.” 

“Damn, Lise, we’ll make a chef out of you yet,”

“Try,” Lisa says, holding out a fork with a single potato skewered on the end.

He can feel Sam’s eyes on him as he takes it, eats, and declares ‘awesome’ through a mouthful of pretty decent roast potato. His gaze is a physical weight as Lisa smiles, kisses his cheek, declares that he smells like engine oil and asks if he’ll make her a coffee. 

Sam doesn’t know a fucking thing about any of this. 

*

__

_She pauses in the doorway to pull the key to Dean’s apartment off the loop and holds it out to him._

_“Your Dad,” Lisa says, “You said he was paranoid. Don’t be so goddamn belligerent about not becoming him that you fall into the same trap.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so hard to write, which is how we ended up with this mash up of several different versions of this chapter all squashed into this mega-chapter thing. I _think_ we will have one more Dean chapter in this part, and then a Cas one.
> 
> Although this part has been particularly stubborn about doing it's own things, so WHO knOWs.

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY. So, hello! I'm sorry about the angst fest (both here and in the last chapter of the last fic). There is.... I promise you , a PLAN. In said plan, this chapter was supposed to be posted pretty much the same time as the last chapter of the last fic, but then life came and basically hit me round the face with a big dose of crap (not _quite_ as much crap as is in Dean's life right now, but you know, enough to curb the flow of creative juices).


End file.
